I think you might be looking too starkly at a black-or-white scenario here. There is a huge middle-ground between writing for the sake of writing, and who cares if anyone even sees it... and writing commercial content and going for the gold.

I don't see how the present medium, technology or social state (ephemeral as they all are) have removed that middle ground... in fact, they seem to have widened it and filled it out with many new opportunities, some transient, some surely with us for as long as we can imagine.

And we have to face it: The world continues to revolve around money, something else which will be with us as long as one person needs the services of another... and I don't see that going away anytime soon. So there will always be room for those who want to earn money by doing something creative, at large or small scales, to house their families or just to buy a hamburger... even if it's harder and harder to manage it.